SURJ at the White Privilege Conference

posted by Dara Silverman | 18150sc
March 09, 2015

SURJ is excited to welcome you to Louisville for a weekend of workshops, strategizing, and relationship building. The SURJ Leadership Team has been working with our affiliate Louisville SURJ to make it a great week. Details below.

Strategies for Engaging White Communities for Racial Justice

SURJ events held in conjunction with the 2015 White Privilege Conference (WPC)

March 11-15, 2015 -- Louisville, Kentucky

SURJ is excited to welcome you to Louisville for a weekend of workshops, strategizing, and relationship building. The SURJ Leadership Team has been working with our affiliate Louisville SURJ to make it a great week.

How can we incorporate not just our brains but our bodies and whole selves into our work, our communities and our movements? This class is especially welcoming to people who might not feel comfortable in conventional yoga classes. Please bring water, a towel, and/or yoga mat. Yoga mats will also be available.

Workshop: Engaging White People in the Struggle for Racial Justice.

Friday, March 13, 10:30am-12:00pm.

Wilkenson Room- Galt House, 140 N 4th St, Louisville, KY

In this workshop at the White Privilege Conference, SURJ will focus on our work in the South and across the country in recruiting and engaging white people in racial justice efforts, working in alliance with organizations of color and bridging the class divide to specifically reach poor and working-class white people.

Accountability: White People Taking Action for Racial Justice

Friday, March 13, 12:30-2pm

Beckham Room, Galt House, 140 N 4th St, Louisville, KY

Join SURJ to plan together how to take what you have learned and bring it into your life outside of the WPC. SURJ is working with 60 local groups and a half dozen national networks to move white people from talk into action for racial justice. We will share our accountability model and actions that our members will be taking in the coming months.

Institute: Where are all the White People? Strategies for Engaging White People in Racial Justice

Saturday, March 14, 10:30am-2:30pm.

Morrow Room - Galt House, 140 N. 4th St, Louisville, KY

In this four hour interactive institute at the White Privilege Conference, participants will learn how to actively organize a base of white people and to foster collective and strategic ways to advance racial justice. We will share tools to connect and support leaders and organizations that are engaged in racial justice work.

Join former SURJ Leadership Team member and author Paul Kivel for a book reading and signing at a local bookstore in Louisville for his new book: Living in the Shadow of the Cross: Understanding and Resisting the Power and Privilege of Christian Hegemony.

Two wonderful justice leaders who have been a part of SURJ will be keynote speakers at the WPC. Chris Crass speaks on Friday, March 13th at 8:30am and Mab Segrest speaks on Saturday, March 14th at 9am.

====================

2. WPC Registration and Payment Information

===================

If you indicated that you wanted to register for the White Privilege Conference with SURJ for a sliding-scale discounted rate, please let the folks at the registration table know that you are part of the SURJ group. If you did not pre-register online for the conference, you will need to register onsite. On your registration, indicate that you are part of the SURJ group, discount code: SURJ15.

We are asking each group to cover the cost of their participants travel to Louisville and in addition to make a contribution to SURJ to cover the costs of the training and help support us to do trainings like this in the future.The range of contributions can be from $50 to $500 per person based on individual and organizational capacity.

We are using a sliding scale to ensure equal access to SURJ offerings, regardless of financial resources, and it requires your active participation. If a sliding scale is implemented effectively, everyone pays a similar percentage of their income for the same goods and services. For those whose organizational budgets or personal circumstances allow, we encourage you to consider paying on the higher end of the scale $500.

As previously mentioned, we are making every effort to cover as much of the costs of the training as possible. We recognize that people are coming from closer and further away and that there are different costs involved for different people and groups (including travel, childcare, missed work, payment for attendants, etc.). To recognize this, we are adopting a sliding scale and making available a scholarship fund.

Checks can be made out to the Highlander Center, with SURJ in the memo line. Checks or cash can be given to Sam Hamlin upon arrival at the conference. You can find her in either of the SURJ workshops, or call or text her on her cell phone at 503-901-7572 to meet to give her your sliding scale donation to SURJ. For questions before the conference on registration or payment, email Sam at samhamlin885@gmail.com.

=======================

3. Social Media

=======================

SURJ be tweeting and posting on facebook. Please join us! Please join us to help move folks who aren’t at the WPC from inspiration to action. Tweet to us at @showup4RJ and use the hashtags: #WPC16 #whiteppl4RJ

=======================

4. Transportation and Housing

======================

Transportation- Louisville SURJ is arranging rides to and from the Saturday Community Welcome Dinner.

To get to and from the Community Welcome Dinner on Saturday March 14, 6-9pm:

The WPC wraps up at 3pm on Saturday so we are asking folks to meet at 5pm at the East Side entrance to the Galt House and we will shuttle you to the Community Welcome Dinner. After the dinner, volunteers will shuttle you to where you are staying.

For other transportation needs, SURJ is asking folks to make their own arrangements. The closest airport to the conference is Louisville Regional Airport . Public transportation is available through TARC.

WPC organizers have also arranged for a discounted shuttle from the airport to the WPC hotel and back through Sandollar Transportation. Follow this link,www.sandollarlimo.com, to reserve a space on an airport shuttle bus. When you get to the "Additional Comments" box on the reservation form enter WPC15 and you will receive the discounted rate of $22.00 for a round trip. You may also call 502-561-4022 and give the WPC15 code to receive the lower rate. In order to be on the shuttle everyone needs to make a reservation.

Housing- Louisville SURJ has generously offered to host as many SURJ folks as possible in community housing in Louisville for the duration of the conference. Requests for housing are now closed, but if you did request housing before Friday, March 6th you should have received an email with details on your housing site and hosts from Lisa Osanka.

If you have questions about your housing placement or transportation options, contact Lisa at losanka@yahoo.com

================

5. What to Bring

================

The weather in Louisville has been pretty chilly, so please plan to bring warm clothes.

If you decide to walk from the Galt House to or from the Community Welcome Dinner (it is about a mile and a half south on Fourth Street) then bring comfortable shoes.

During your time in Louisville, please support local businesses and not businesses that engage in racial profiling. Plans are underway for an action to challenge racial profiling at Fourth Street Live! Here are recent stories for background on the racial profiling at a venue owned by the nationally infamous Cordish Company:

Please make sure to show much appreciation for Louisville SURJ members--as they have been working hard to find housing and transportation options for folks coming from out of town, organizing logistics for our strategy session, and are generously hosting our community dinner on Saturday evening!

We are looking forward to seeing you in Louisville this week! If you have any other questions about the WPC, SURJ events, or logistics please don't hesitate to contact us:

SURJ is a national network of groups and individuals organizing white people for racial justice. Through community organizing, mobilizing, and education, SURJ moves white people to act as part of a multi-racial majority for justice with passion and accountability. We work to connect people across the country while supporting and collaborating with local and national racial justice organizing efforts. SURJ provides a space to build relationships, skills, and political analysis to act for change. For more information go to: http://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/